On Second Thought

By Jay Evensen , Deseret News

Published: Monday, Jan. 20 2014 12:00 a.m. MST

(Shutterstock)

Congress finally passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill last week. It will keep the government going until September. Finally, we can stop criticizing lawmakers for not funding the government and go back to criticizing them for overspending.

A Senate report last week laid blame for the deadly Benghazi attacks on the State Department, the military and intelligence agencies. That was a blow to Democrats who wanted to blame it on delays at the George Washington Bridge.

Pizza Hut has announced it will begin including deliberate imperfections in its crusts, such as air bubbles, stray cheese and the like. It’s called being more “authentic.” If this catches on, think of the possibilities. Politicians would no longer have to say, “mistakes were made.” They could just say, “I displayed authentic leadership.”

Pizza Hut is just the latest in a corporate trend away from producing products that look as if they were made by machines on an assembly line. Imperfections provide character. The Yugo was way ahead of its time.

Remember this for your next employee evaluation: “I was authentic in all my work.”

The NSA apparently collects millions of texts daily — and that’s just from one high school.

Next time you complain about your job, just think about the guy who has to wade through all those texts.

It’s worse than you think. Apparently, the NSA forgot to sign up for unlimited texting.

President Obama gave a speech last week in which he said he was giving the NSA’s massive database of information to a yet-to-be-chosen third party. I hope it’s not Target.

The president said from now on the government would zero in only on phone numbers that are, at the most, two connections away from numbers belonging to terrorists. Wait, we know the terrorists’ telephone numbers? Why don’t we just call them direct?

Why don’t we mess with them and, say, order 50 pizzas delivered to their door every hour forever?

I wouldn’t say the administration is being accommodating to Iran in discussions over nuclear capabilities, but rumor has it Secretary of State John Kerry’s nameplate at upcoming talks will identify him as from “The Great Satan.”